The Corpse Came in Person by Carlotta Dale
from Windmills: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
Enough blood was in the sink to indicate a double homicide.
Brushing my teeth was a dangerous occupation. The shit gums were inherited from my mother, who’d had dentures by the time she hit forty. I was headed in the same direction.
No, the corpse was in the other room, and she wouldn’t shut up.
The Angelus, located at Spring and Fourth in Downtown Los Angeles, still had the fancy portico, but was otherwise a dump. No frills. I didn’t miss ’em, and the rent was cheap. Things had been different once, but those days were gone and I’m not sure I missed them, either.
Two years from now, in fifty-seven, the building would be torn down for a parking lot.
I rinsed my mouth and went into the main room, where she lay stretched out on the bed, a neat hole in her forehead. She was most sincerely dead. I’d need to find a place to stow her, if she ever stopped talking.
Killing is easy; it’s bodies that’re hard. Up along Mulholland was a good dumping ground.
Don’t get me wrong: I didn’t shoot her. No money, no point. Just stating a general principle. She’d come into the bar, earlier in the evening, and perched on a nearby stool. The door, easing back to closed, let in a view of glittering rain.
She ordered a Bourbon and seven and pulled some bills from her purse. If she had more than fifty bucks in the wad, I’d be bowled over.
“Do you know this tune?” she asked with a sidelong look from under her old-fashioned hat, much like the one Bergman wore in Casablanca.
“‘My Sister and I.’ Bea Wain.”
“Why’s she singing about windmills and tulip gardens? Were they Dutch?”
“Yep. Dutch Jews. They’re sad because everybody didn’t escape the Nazis. That a problem?”
“No … I’ve never met a Jew.”
Man, she must have been from the sticks. “New to L.A.?”
“Yeah. I didn’t mean to come here tonight. This is just where the bus stopped.”
I wasn’t buying it—the bus stopped at Fifth, not Fourth—but it wasn’t any of my business. “What’s your name? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Molly. Uh, Malone.”
I considered making a joke about cockles and mussels alive alive o, thought better of it, and passed her one of my cards.
“Matthew Bannister,” she read aloud. “Do you go by Matthew or Matt?”
“Either’s fine.” Particularly since neither of our names appeared on our birth certificates. “You on the run?”
“No. What? You don’t know anything about me.”
I turned my attention to my drink. A few minutes slid by before she piped up again.
“Not very talkative, are you? Aren’t I your type?”
“Nobody’s my type, lady. Nobody I’ve ever found, anyway.”
“Guess I oughta be glad you’re not a Lothario.”
“Hardly. I’m going upstairs now, but if you need a spot to hang your hat, there’s a not-too-lumpy couch. And no funny business.”
She tugged at the brim of her chapeau, lowering it further. “Go fly a kite.”
“Too rainy out. If you change your mind, the offer’s open. Room three-oh-two.”
On my way up, I reflected on the futility of being a decent person. I’d attempted it. But I’d half-assed my way through life, wanting to be good at things without trying too hard. All the way back to when I was a kid, shooting marbles.
The knock later on surprised me, but I let her in.
“You said no funny business, but … would you give me a kiss?”
“Sure. Everybody needs one sometimes.” I leaned forward, touching her lips. My head jerked back. “You’re cold as an icebox.” A hunch struck me. “Ditch the hat.”
“You won’t like it.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
She threw it on the sofa. Without it, the bullet hole stood out. The blood had turned black, looking as if a priest had gone overboard with the soot on Ash Wednesday. Must’ve been a small caliber pistol.
“You’re dead.”
“Guess so.”
“How the hell? You some kind of zombie?”
She was answering as I rushed to the bathroom, throwing up the three martinis I’d drunk. They’d tasted better on the way down than on the return trip. I brushed my teeth, partly to remove the flavor of puke and partly to avoid the monologue.
As I said, she’d stretched herself out. Still talking.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.
“I thought we might …”
“I don’t screw zombies.”
“Maybe I’m a ghost.”
“I don’t screw them either.”
She paused for a minute—I was grateful for the respite—before saying:
“I’d like to see that windmill and that tulip garden.”
“You mean from the song. Nothing doing like that in L.A. But … wait a sec. Can you climb a ladder?”
“Sure.”
“Put your hat back on. We’re taking a ride.”
I didn’t talk much on the drive, only asking if she knew the shooter.
“Nope. Got caught in some crossfire.”
She was lying. Her hat had been off, the bullet hole small: an up-close-and personal hit. Family, probably. It usually was. But people will kill for a stick of chewing gum, or a pack of Camels, or even over a funny look, so who knows?
“Bad luck,” I said. “Here we are.”
The only windmills in L.A.—albeit quarter-scale—are on top of Van de Kamp bakeries. This one, on Wilshire, was a far cry from a Dutch tulip garden, but it’d do.
I parked in back and she started up the maintenance ladder.
“Perfect,” she said. “Thanks.”
Another lie. Things had gotten bad if dead people were being kind to me.
Once she’d ascended, I pulled the car back onto Wilshire. She was leaning over the railing, watching the cars glide west, like fish returning to the sea.
I wondered if they’d ever find the body. If she ever really died, that is. Not my problem. At least the rain had stopped.
This story appears as part of Windmills, a PUNK NOIR Magazine series.
Bio
Carlotta Dale lives in L.A., a city she adores from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, in a house that’s essentially an oversized cabinet of curiosities. She’s had many jobs, including gigs as a ghost writer (oddly appropriate, that). She still uses adverbs—sparingly—but has never had any fiction published. She hopes these things are not connected. She can be found on Twitter @carlottadale38 and on BlueSky @carlottadale.bsky.social.
PUNK NOIR, the online literary and arts magazine that looks at the world at its most askew, casting a bloodshot eye over the written word, film, music, television and more.
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This is a fantastic story by Carlotta!
Very nice film noir tale. I love the last line about how the rain stopped. Hehe. After hanging out with a lady with a hole in her head, he focuses on the weather. Perfect.